Retouching
by BiteMeTechie
Summary: There is more to Becky Albright than what the warped lens of Jonathan Crane ever saw of her. A long, in-depth exploration of the would-be Mistress of Fear and how she got to where she was when we met her, and why the Scarecrow really became obsessed with her in the first place.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N:** This story was written for the Free For All Fic For All-or FFAFFA for short-over on the Ask the Squishykins tumblr, wherein Twinings and I offer ourselves up to fill as many fic prompts as humanly possible with stories ranging in length from 100 to 16,000 words. The current round runs until May 7th, 2014, so if you'd like a fic written to your custom specifications, please don't hesitate to drop by and ask for it! :)_

_**Prompt**: Rework and develop Becky Albright's character and origin until you feel she is an interesting character. In other words, make Becky the character she should have been._

_**Extremely long, rambly author's notes that you can totally skip:** This prompt is brilliantly cruel. Given how little development Becky was officially given, it's a bit like asking me to give a teapot internally consistent personality and motivations. Her canon traits are very limited: "plucky", "brave", "bullied", "in law school" and "walks with a cane." The first two were descriptions placed on her by an unreliable narrator___—_Jonathan Crane___—and_ weren't shown in a meaningful way. After all, there's nothing brave about not being afraid if you never have to overcome your fear. The last two traits were represented visually by the artist and mattered little to her characterization/actions. The trait in the middle—bullied—mirrors Crane's backstory so fully it had no unique features to differentiate her experience from his. _

_Reworking her was hard. Especially since I'm pretty devoted to continuity. I love headcanons, but when I write them they've got to grow directly from the source material, and I prefer to pack in as much from as many different stories as possible since that gives me more to work with. Unfortunately, Becky only has one story, her canon traits are few, and there isn't much in fandom either, though it does sweep her disability under the rug often enough that it makes me uncomfortable.  
_

_All that said: contrary to what the prompt suggests, the events of New Year's Evil: Scarecrow are not Becky's origin. The story is her first and last appearance, but its events are told from Jonathan Crane's perspective. In the narrative, she begins and ends with him because, ultimately, it's his story. She's a prop, something to be acted upon and then used to bludgeon Crane with the moral, in much the same way Barbara Gordon was in The Killing Joke. So, my highest priority in writing this was make it **Becky's** story in which she's the focus, not set dressing. I do not know if I succeeded, but I gave it my best damn shot. _

_ Finally, on a more technical note, while it's more of a between-the-panels sort of prequel thing, this story remains mostly compliant with the events of the one-shot. There are a handful of things I've changed for the sake of establishing believable motivation for the characters involved, Jonathan included, but you can read this, then immediately go read New Year's Evil: Scarecrow without straining yourself to make it fit. I hope._

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_Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not the absence of fear.—Mark Twain_

The first bad storm of October threatened Gotham City, the promised rain heralding the beginning of a dismal, chilly autumn. Becky Albright didn't have to check the weather reports or a farmer's almanac to know what lay around the corner. The telltale ache in her bones that woke her up screamed from the inside out of her that it promised to be a nasty, blustery day: cold, penetrating and the sort she hated most. It meant dragging her winter coat out of the back of the closet, layering scratchy tights under her jeans and her perfume getting drowned out by the overpowering stench of the menthol analgesic cream she'd have to slather on her skin to ease the inevitable stiffness in all the parts of her that had to move around in the cold.

Clutching her itchy, moth eaten afghan to her chest, Becky sat up. If her knees had been hinges, they would have creaked out a desperate plea to be oiled, warning jolts of pain all the way to her ankles the evidence of their protest. In the dim morning light, she fumbled for her wristwatch, draped over the broken alarm clock on her nightstand that she hadn't bothered to throw out. With a squint, she made out the outline of the hands on the watch dial. _Not even six yet?_

The watch clattered on the bedside table, the noise accompanied by Becky's sigh. The blankets fell on the floor next to the bed in a heap as she stretched and worked her fingers through her hair to untangle some of the more pronounced knots. It felt like a leg brace sort of day, the first of many unless she missed her guess. Just what she needed. A friendly, achy wake-up call from her body always trumpeted the first real chilly weather of the year, and with the last warm days went all hope of being able to function with just a cane—at least, not as well as she had been. There were other, even more bothersome things to be considered with winter looming. Numbers tallied themselves on a blackboard in her head as she put her feet in her fuzzy gray bunny slippers: how much was in her bank account, how many work hours she'd been pulling in lately, how many more pain pills she had left…

The bottom line didn't look good. While she'd done her best to put some money away over the spring and summer months, hoarding nickles and dimes and jealously guarding them like an animal storing up for the winter, pesky things like food and rent kept eating away at her meager savings no matter how many coupons she clipped or pennies she pinched until they squealed. If it weren't for that stupid human need for shelter and sustenance, she would have been doing fine. As it was, if her math was right, she had enough medication left to get her through the next ten days—fifteen if she worked to stretch it and skipped a day or two—and enough in the bank to cover one more refill if she ate nothing but canned soup for the last few days of the month. With the weather turning cold, there would be no more muscling her way through with one prescription every two months; she'd have to cut back on every unnecessary expense to scrape together enough cash to keep herself in refills until March if she wanted to have any hope of staying in school _and_ keeping her job.

There was a big mess of irony for you. She needed a job to keep her meds, her meds to keep her job, and both to stay in school so she could get a job that was good enough to come with insurance to cover her meds. Whoever made the rules for getting into any income bracket higher than "poor" sure had a lousy sense of humor. She half hoped someone shot them for it.

Becky shrugged into her ratty bathrobe and shuffled across the apartment to the kitchen portion of the kitchenette. The fridge hummed its staccato hum when she opened it, the bulb flickering a few times before the light stabilized. Nothing but a ketchup bottle and a jar of pickles sat on the top shelf, and the pickles looked yellow and sad. The fridge door shut, the rubber lining the inside making a squishy sound. With a brief glance at the Mr. Coffee on the counter, Becky debated whether or not she wanted to brew a pot. Being awake and alert today was important, she thought with a frown, but would it be better to expend the precious energy necessary to make the coffee to be awake now, or save that energy for later?

Skipping the hassle of making coffee seemed the wisest course if she wanted to make it through the day without winding up in a bathroom stall somewhere crying from exhaustion before it was over. Becky turned on the tap and filled a glass with water instead. It tasted rusty, and the flavor made her jaw hurt right behind her back teeth, but she choked it down with a grimace. Whose pipes in the building needed replacing this week? And would it finally alert the building manager to the meth lab four doors down? She smiled wanly and swallowed her pills. Probably not.

The cupboards were almost as bare as the fridge, she discovered upon opening them and taking a peek at their contents. Breakfast was destined to be a sad affair; plain oatmeal. At least it was instant and saved time and effort, that was something. It wasn't even so bad with a pinch of cinnamon sprinkled in. It would have been better with milk and sugar, but thinking like that was the road to feeling sorry for herself and she couldn't afford that today.

Right. Today. She poked at her oatmeal with her spoon, smushing some of the lumps, and glanced across the room to her easy chair where the outfit she'd put out the night before lay. The dark thought of how sinister they looked there occurred to her, all neatly laid out like someone had taken a seat and disappeared into the ether, leaving nothing but their clothes behind. It was an absurd idea, that empty fabric could look threatening and suggest a phantom visitor in the night who had settled in her chair to watch her sleep, but in the months since her encounter with the Scarecrow she'd found lots of things had the potential to be frightening if you tilted your head just right and thought about it hard enough—or sometimes if you didn't think about it at all. The intrusive thoughts weren't her least favorite souvenir of that day when he'd filled the University Library with fear toxin, but they were close to the top of the list.

When she scraped the last of her oatmeal from her bowl, Becky put it in the sink and rinsed it out. On her way to the bathroom, she stopped to smooth the front of the wool blazer her mother had helped her pick out from her own wardrobe. It would hang on Becky's frame loosely, a size too big, but it was the best she could do on short notice. She hoped it'd be good enough. More than that, she hoped it made her look trustworthy. Credible. _Believable_. That was the important one.

She tried to push the worries about not being convincing aside. Panicking now was pointless; that could come later, if it had to. Becky slipped into the bathroom and hit the light switch. The shower knob squeaked when she gave it a twist, water dribbling in a weak stream from the shower head. She leaned her hand on the wall above the toilet and stepped over the edge of the bathtub, careful not to lose her balance. One of these days she was going to slip and fall if her landlord never bothered to install the support bar he'd been promising her since she moved in; and then, she thought dryly, she could sue him for all that money he didn't have.

The water that trickled down her back was lukewarm as always, not the scalding, relaxing heat she hoped for and never got every morning. The muscles of her jaw tightened as it ran down her legs, teasing with the possibility of pain relief without delivering much of anything at all. If she'd had more time, she would have boiled a few pots of water and taken a bath, but her stove took forever to heat anything to a decent temperature and there never seemed to be _that_ much time.

What little warm water had been in the pipes to begin with ran out much faster than she wanted. She turned off the shower and waited, shivering, for the water around her feet to drain enough that she wouldn't slip on stepping out of the tub. Her footing was sure when her toes touched the tile floor and she reached for a towel. After wringing out her hair and sweeping away most of the water on her skin, she wrapped the ragged terrycloth around herself. Becky opened the medicine cabinet over the sink and pushed pill bottles this way and that, looking for her bottle of concealer hidden somewhere amidst the clutter. It hadn't been used in so long that the cap had crusted shut but she opened it and gave it an inquisitive sniff. It seemed okay.

With her pinkie, she dabbed some on the bridge of her nose and started to blend away the scatter of freckles that everyone said made her look thirteen. A face graced with eternal youth wasn't a bad thing, per se, but today of all days she needed to be taken seriously. Her unskilled fingers did a clumsy job of clearing her complexion, but it wasn't too bad. She brushed her teeth and styled her hair, then gave her reflection a once over. She'd overshot the goal of looking her age by about five years, but twenty-six was a better alternative to looking like she was still into Lip Smackers and lollipops.

As satisfied with her appearance as she was likely to get, Becky flipped off the bathroom light and closed the door behind her, mindful to make sure the latch bolt caught so it wouldn't pop open later. The only thought in her head was how she liked the rough texture of the carpet piling against the bare soles of her feet as she turned to face her bed. It was a silly, inconsequential thing; one of those ordinary little sensations secretly tucked in every moment of the day, just part of the backdrop of an average human life, and it came to a disorienting screeching halt when her eyes lit on her mattress.

Reality slowed to a crawl. Becky's throat contracted, her mouth producing a scream that she felt on her tongue more than heard. Her heart hammered in her chest, pulse like thunder in her ears and her lungs emptied of air. The distant, hysterical thought of how normal everything had been just seconds earlier and how unfair it was that it wasn't so anymore floated across her brain. Her mind only processed fragments of what she was seeing at a time, refusing to make sense of any more than that. Black suit. Crossed legs. Hands clasped over his knees. Gun. _Gun_. He had a _gun._

"Good morning, Miss Albright."

_He isn't Crane, he isn't,_ these echoes of words that should have made her feel better but didn't ricocheted in her head. Becky collapsed against the door, unaware that her knuckles were turning white around the doorknob she still hadn't released. She knew his pinched face, the curls of his obvious toupee, the deep creases of his jowls. Jonathan Crane's lawyer and, given the flash of metal and leather under his jacket that revealed a shoulder holster, enforcer sat on her bed. He perched there, in his sleek black suit, with his back to her teddy bears and the afghan her own grandmother had crocheted crumpled under his immaculate, shiny black shoes: the very picture of Something That Did Not Belong There.

"Were you planning on giving a formal statement to the police this morning?"

She couldn't make her lips move. She couldn't even blink. Her mind raced in pointless circles, groping for some thought to hold onto that wasn't an unanswerable question. How did he get in? The door was locked. The fire escape? No, the window was closed. Did anybody hear her scream? If they did, did it even matter? Nobody would call the police in this neighborhood. Why was he here? What was he going to do to her? Was he going to hurt her? Torture her? Kill her? What would dying feel like?

"Miss Albright…" He cracked his knuckles, the joints giving a series of snaps like bubble paper, and tented his fingers. She noticed his nails were as well manicured as the rest of him. It was insane to do so, but she did. "I hate having to repeat myself."

Becky swallowed hard. She dug deep to find the will to overcome her frozen muscles. Getting her head to shake even a little felt like pulling taffy.

"Good." He stood up, brushed some lint off his shoulder and buttoned his jacket. Of course it had only been open for the sake of the implied threat. Of course it had.

If she had intentionally invited him in for tea, he couldn't have left the apartment more casually. Becky slid down to the floor, her fingers still tight around the doorknob, and focused on slowing down her breathing. The DA said she'd be safe. She said Crane couldn't get to her. She said she had nothing to worry about. _She lied_.

There was no way to know how long she sat there, slumped against the door and struggling to remember the few coping skills she'd been taught to use in the case of a panic attack. Breathing. Counting. Something like that. Happy place. It was all jumbled. There was the weight of an elephant on her chest, squashing her lungs and squeezing her heart; she couldn't think of anything but that. Her vision got blurry, the edges starting to go dark. _Pullittogetherpullittogetherstoppanickingthisisn'thelpingstoppanickingstopstopstop!_ She felt stupid and helpless to combat the torrents of panic that washed over her. _Do something!_

Her body shook hard as she crawled to her easy chair and pulled herself up off the floor. She had to get dressed. She had to…she had to…what? Go. She had to go. She'd figure out where on the way. The skirt zipper caught her fingers, the buttons of her blouse refused to push through their holes in her quivering hands. Screw it! She left her shirt half open and pulled on her coat. There wasn't time to put on the braces; the cane would have to do.

Becky staggered down the hallway and to the elevator. Before she realized what she was doing, the fingers of her free hand were searching her pockets for loose change. Her plan of action came on so fast she didn't register it taking hold and putting reins on her panic. The payphone in the lobby. God, she hoped it had been repaired. She hoped her mouth could make words by the time she made it there. She hoped someone was at the DA's office to take a message this early in the morning.

Her stomach dropped out when the elevator rattled its way toward the ground floor. She held tight to the feeling; something unpleasant to focus on that wasn't her terror was still something to focus on. The doors lurched open and she burst into the quiet lobby. A few blue collar workers were heading out to work. She barely noticed them, all she saw was the payphone, gleaming blue and silver near the double doors that led out to the street. It wasn't in use and it didn't have an "OUT OF ORDER" note taped to it anymore. She had just enough change to make two calls. Someone, somewhere, had to be watching out for her. Whoever that higher power was didn't seem to have a problem with letting some thug scare her half to death, but they were at least going to let her do something to keep it from happening again.

"Information, what city please?" The operator's voice was so calm it made her head spin. With her world rocking in front of her eyes, it was hard to remember that, in other parts of the city, there were people who weren't in the middle of an anxiety attack.

Her voice came out in a croak, forcing its way past a lump that was trying to close off her throat. "Gotham City. I need the office of the District Attorney."

"Yes, ma'am."

She listened hard as a prerecorded message railed off the numbers to her twice. Her hands quaked around the telephone and it took all her concentration to retain any information at all. Becky repeated the digits over and over in a strained whisper to keep from forgetting them after she hung up. She dialed them and waited for a dial tone. It couldn't have taken more than ten seconds; it felt like an hour.

Unsurprisingly, no one human answered, but she navigated the automatic telephone system with a few punches of the keypad. Finally, she got to an answering machine for the DA's office.

"Miss Van Dorn, this is Becky Albright," she breathed into the receiver, "I'm sorry. I've changed my mind. I can't help you."

Trembling, she put the phone back on the hook and lurched away. The receiver didn't seat correctly. It slipped from where she'd put it and swung from its cord, an ominous pendulum that clicked and crackled as a voice filtered weakly from the earpiece. "Hello? Becky, are you there? I just got into the office. Becky?"

Becky didn't hear.


	2. Chapter 2

The nightmares were back. They were black, shadowy things that took refuge in the dark places between sunset and sunrise, grasping for her skin with glinting, sharpened claws and dragging her, unwilling, from the comfort of her bed. They left her addled by sleep deprivation, shambling from task to task during the day with a perpetual yawn on her lips and heavy bags under her eyes. Sleeping pills offered oblivion, but falling asleep on them felt like being pulled by a tide, forced under waves of crushing sleep that didn't even leave her rested. Drugs killed the nighttime hours, not the nightmares—if those even could be killed. She got a lot of reading done in the hours when she couldn't stand to turn off the light and wait in the darkness for the terrifying images to come to retrieve her. Becky retained very little of the information she took in, but it tempered the paranoia that had her looking over her shoulder and startling at every noise.

Fantasies of being able to take time off from work and school just to sleep somewhere she felt safe became her constant companion. _Somewhere she felt safe_, what a joke. There was nowhere safe. The four walls of her own apartment had betrayed her, forcing her to confront the fact that the place she'd considered a haven was no more secure than a cardboard box. If he really wanted to get to her, he could. If anyone really wanted to get to _anybody_, they could. There were probably other people in Gotham who felt the way she did—the survivors of the villains—all walking wounded waiting for the sky to fall and crush them. It made her feel sick. Was she shell shocked? Traumatized? She couldn't find a name for it. The bleakness inside her was too big. It was only colored with the vibrant fear of her space being violated again and the subtle shades of guilt that came with knowing she'd bailed on the prosecutor who was trying to put that monster away.

Jonathan Crane occupied her mind, a bitter specter who laced his fingers through her thoughts and poisoned each one of them. She felt cheated every time her thoughts turned to him against her will. It had been a year since her initial encounter with the Scarecrow. It took nine months for the police to catch him and keep him long enough to seek an indictment; that was bad enough, but she had fought her way through with a little counseling, a little more crying and a lot of Kleenex. The hyper-vigilance and sleepless nights were supposed to be behind her—a delusion fed by Miss Van Dorn's assurances that with a trial looming on the horizon and Crane behind bars, it would all be over and her life could be her own again. Damn him for taking that from her. Now she was right back to jumping at the sight of her own shadow. She hoped he burned in the most fiery part of hell, preferably surrounded by plenty of demons to stab him with pitchforks into eternity.

The only thing that gave her any measure of comfort in the face of refusing to give a statement in preparation of appearing before the grand jury was the knowledge that there were plenty of other victims who were willing to take her place. His record wouldn't do him any favors, either. Even without her involvement, there was no way he wasn't going to wind up in Arkham Asylum where he belonged. That thought didn't let her sleep any easier, but it kept her from shutting down entirely. While the world around her felt gray, her sleep fitful and her meals flavorless, she wasn't totally paralyzed. She hardly shook at all on her walk from work to the bus stop that took her home, and she even managed to keep from completely drowning in her coursework.

Becky moved to turn a page in "Langford's Advanced Photography," to start the chapter on choosing lenses. It tore away from the textbook's spine when a knock at the door startled her and she gripped it too tightly. Her eyes snapped to the door, the violent flutter of her heart beating a rhythm against her ribcage, and she found herself holding her breath in anticipation of another knock. Though she knew it was coming, she still flinched when the curt rapping of knuckles against the wood echoed through the apartment. She didn't move.

"Miss Albright, it's the police. Please open the door."

It was a woman's voice. Would Crane use a woman? And would one of Crane's goons knock? Becky closed her book but still didn't leave her chair. "Do…do you have identification?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Her knees knocked together as she stood, but she steadied herself on her cane and crossed the apartment to stand in front of the door. The peephole revealed a woman in her thirties, leather coat, and a grouchy looking man Becky had to assume was her partner in a cliche of a tattered, mud splashed trench. "May I see it?"

The question was rewarded with the flash of a convincing badge. The policewoman didn't put it away right away the way cops did on TV, letting Becky get a good look at the name and numbers on it. She repeated them a few times silently to memorize them—plenty of police in Gotham had bad reputations, there was no point not being cautious—and opened the door.

"I'm Detective Montoya," the woman said, then indicated her escort, "this is Detective Bullock. May we come in, ma'am?"

Becky shifted from one foot to the other, uncertain.

"It's fine if you're not okay with that." Detective Montoya had a kind face. A trustworthy face. She wanted to step aside to let her in, but didn't. "DA Van Dorn sent us to check up on you."

She called to refuse to give a statement a week ago. They were just getting around to making sure she was still alive now? Becky said nothing.

"Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?"

Becky licked her lips; they felt dry and sandy. "What kind of questions?"

"Has anyone come to talk to you about Jonathan Crane? Threatened you?"

"Not…" Becky stopped and shook her head. What was she going to say? 'Not exactly'? Crane's lawyer hadn't said anything that was an actual threat and she hadn't reported the break-in so there was no proof of even that much. "No."

"I see." She didn't look convinced, but Detective Montoya reached into her pocket and took out a business card. "If anyone does, call. That's called witness tampering, ma'am, and it's against the law."

The card felt heavy in her hand, perhaps even forbidding. "I will."

The detectives turned to leave and she glanced at the card. It identified Montoya as _homicide_. Becky's voice burst out of her mouth before she could stop it. "Why do you ask?"

"One of his boys tampered with a witness set to testify." Detective Bullock said that, his voice gruff. "Tampered her right into the harbor, kid."

Becky moved to close her door. Montoya's voice drifted down the hallway to her, along with the ding of the elevator stopping on her floor. "Jesus _Christ_, Harvey. Were you _trying_ to scare her? Learn some damn finesse."

She couldn't be sure, as the door clicked shut, but his response sounded like nothing more than a belch.

Deciding not to get involved was starting to look like the smartest choice Becky Albright had ever made.


	3. Chapter 3

_Warnings for this chapter: Ableism_

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After awhile, sleep started to come a little easier, though her nightmares were still often occupied by images of Crane. Now, though, she saw him menacing someone _else_, someone she couldn't identify, while she stayed at a safe distance and watched from afar. Those dreams were somehow both better and worse than the ones she'd been having before. Becky tried not to spend too much time thinking about them, more concerned with reclaiming her life piece by piece. She worked, came home, locked her door and windows and tried to keep up with school. It was a monotonous existence that still felt like a victory in a small way.

The first week of November, when most of the leaves had abandoned their trees and left them trembling half-naked in the frosty air, Becky woke up on her day off and found to her delight that the weather wasn't completely intolerable. She spread the curtains of her bedroom window wide and looked out on the dingy street beneath the gray, overcast sky. It was the first time she'd opened them and let the sun stream in since Crane's lawyer-slash-henchman had shown up; it wasn't until she saw the wind sweeping through the trees and shaking their branches that she realized how cooped up she felt. When had she done anything even marginally recreational in the past few weeks? She couldn't think of anything.

Worrying her lip between her teeth, she weighed the idea of going out. It was a scary prospect, leaving the apartment to go somewhere she wasn't expected, where no one would think it odd if she didn't show up by a certain time. Work and school had a sense of safety to them in that respect: if she didn't show, someone might actually bother to look for her.

A dog barked beneath her window, hopping along in front of its owner and yipping with excitement. It was such a beautiful day…and who knew when the snow would come? It would be hard enough just getting to work and school on time then, it would be next to impossible to do anything remotely _fun_ when the sidewalks were slick with ice.

Her mind made up, she bundled up in her coziest sweater, knit tights and jeans, put her leg braces on and loaded up on Ibuprofen to ease the swelling in her joints from a week of standing around at work. Carefully, she took her camera down from its top shelf in her tiny closet, the one thing of value that she owned. It had taken two years in high school to save up enough to buy it, and it wasn't even new when she got it, but it was precious just the same. The photos she'd taken with it were the only reason she'd snagged the modest scholarship that was helping put her through college.

While the photography school she attended was laughably tiny in comparison to the community colleges in Gotham that were basically punchlines, it was still a huge step up. To someone else, it might have seemed like a pittance, but to Becky it was a ray of hope—that maybe, someday, she could support herself with a job that wouldn't wear her down to nothing every day. The only alternatives were working a minimum wage job until she dropped over dead, or spending a few years—years that she couldn't afford not to work during—trying to get on disability.

The weather outside was brisk enough to make her ache, but it was more manageable than it could have been. For that she was thankful. Climbing on and off the bus was a challenge, but the art museum was worth it. In summer, she would have gone to Robinson Park to people watch and take photos, but fifteen minutes on a park bench in this weather would have been her limit, and she wanted—no, needed—more time than that.

Most museums in Gotham were in the middle of the city, smack dab in the most tourist-friendly part, and a lot of them didn't charge admission. Because there were sight-seeing tours trickling through the doors of the museums all day long, and a lot of the tourists were tired after hours of pounding the pavement outside, the museums provided plenty of places to sit and take a break to watch the patrons go by. The Museum of Film sometimes even had free film festivals that Becky took advantage of when she felt energetic enough to do more than work, attend class and sleep; they had comfortable seating, air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter. Best of all, none of the museums had "No Flash Photography!" rules. It was an ideal day out, as far as Becky was concerned. Free, accessible and full of interesting people to photograph.

After some thought, she decided today seemed like a Modern Art kind of day. She didn't feel up to traversing the dozens of steps up to the entrance of the Natural History Museum, and the Folk Art Museum was advertising the same quilting exhibit they'd had for six months. Becky didn't think she could stand another afternoon of taking pictures of mid-western grandmothers with fanny packs oohing and aahing over intricate stitching that all looked the same after awhile.

The museum wasn't particularly crowded, but there were enough people to suit her purposes. She chose a bench in a corner of one of the exhibit rooms that was more secluded than the others, amidst the cubist paintings, and sat down.

There was the usual mix of families—many with hyper or tired small children and bored teenagers checking their watches—and couples holding hands, ranging in age from their twenties to their sixties. She snapped a few shots of the intertwined, knobby fingers of one of the older couples, satisfied that she'd captured the moment the husband's wedding ring had caught the light. She wondered how long they'd been married; if theirs was the lifelong or the second chance at love sort of relationship. A little boy, fast asleep in his mother's arms with his head on her shoulder, was her next subject. Becky made a point not to get either of their full faces in the picture, letting the segments of their bodies tell the story of a sleepy child and a loving parent.

A handful of single museum patrons drifted through the room as the hours passed. A woman, graceful and tall, yielded a picture of bright green eyes behind black sunglasses studying a painting. A man, black vest, deep, deep emerald shirt rolled to his elbows, became a photo from the nostrils down, a smirk twisting his lips and his hand stroking his chin thoughtfully. Another woman, red hair, became a picture of her back, the focal point of the photo the old-fashioned seams running down the back of her dark stockings.

None of them noticed Becky, or if they did, they didn't mind her presence. People made a habit of treating her as invisible when she wore her leg braces; no one wanted to be caught mid-stare, so they did the opposite and avoided looking at her at all. The cane garnered the occasional looks of pity or disbelief that someone her age could possibly need it, but the braces were another story. Sometimes the invisibility bothered her; sometimes, like today, it was exactly what she wanted.

When her tailbone started to hurt from sitting in one position too long, and her stomach started to growl, Becky shifted and winced. If she'd had the money to waste, she would have stopped in the museum cafe, but a fifteen dollar gourmet snack was so far out of her budget it might as well have been on another planet. It would have been nice to have the option of grabbing a bite and squeezing some more pictures into her day, but it just wasn't feasible. Though she wanted to stay for several more hours, even if she didn't need to go home to eat, she was going to be bone tired by the time she got off the bus as it was; there was no way she could push herself any further. She had to get ready to head home.

But…

Though her every rational impulse was screaming at her to do otherwise, that _Just a few more photos_ would be too many and she'd regret it later when she was too exhausted to make herself a dinner more complicated than a granola bar, she couldn't help herself. Becky lifted the camera to her eye, scanning the room for her next subject.

Ah. There. Business woman. She adjusted the focus on her lens and tried to pick a focal point. The hair pulled tight in a severe bun? No. Rigid shoulders and a pearl lapel pin? No. Shoes? Yes, the shoes. Black, alligator, silver buckles on the pointy toes; very chic. Becky smiled, but it faded as she tried to get the subject in the frame. The shoes were heading her direction in purposeful, steady strides.

Becky pulled the camera away, her eyes rising to meet the face of the woman. What she saw made her shoulders slump. Not her. Not today. Not _now_. It had been such a good day…

"Becky Albright! As I live and breathe!" From the wide, welcoming smile on her face, you'd never have guessed that the woman who scooped Becky up from her place on the bench had been one of her biggest adolescent tormentors. Heather Garski, leader of the second most popular clique in grade school, middle school _and_ high school, forced a bear hug on Becky, which she endured with a wince arising from emotional discomfort rather than physical pain. "How are you?"

"I'm—"

Heather drew back and, looking at Becky's face, let out a dramatic gasp. "Oh! I'm sorry, did I hurt you? Stupid me, always forgetting how fragile you are!"

_Of course. I'm uncomfortable, but it couldn't possibly be that you have no sense of personal boundaries, I must just be breakable._ "Don't worry, I'm fine."

"Here, let's sit down," Heather took her by the hand and led her all of two feet to the bench she'd already been sitting on, as though she couldn't make it on her own. "I don't want to wear you out. Now then, how _are_ you?"

Becky put on the most convincing smile she could. She couldn't very well snap at her. No, never could snap at _anyone_ for that kind of remark. Casual reminders of her disability and how it defined her in other people's eyes were easily defended as _just being sensitive to **your** needs, Becky_ or _just trying to help **you** out, Becky_, not dehumanizing. Not being willing to be treated like a breakable object was deemed ungrateful and intolerable, lashing out at the poor, big-hearted people who only wanted to be _nice_; she just couldn't deal with that particular futile battle today.

"I'm doing okay. School, work, you know," she said pleasantly, making a fist with one hand and digging the nails into her skin to steady herself. "And my photography is keeping me busy, obviously."

If she tried very, very hard, she could block out the memories of overhearing Heather and her friends talking about how they felt so bad they just had to do something for poor, lonely Becky…how she was invited to sit with them at lunch, yet was still left out of the conversation because she was only on the outskirts of their group to make them feel altruistic. How, the first time a boy had asked her to a dance, it was only because Heather had asked him to, and how she was never allowed to carry her own things or go to the rest room unaccompanied at school because Helpful Heather went to the vice principal on a campaign to make her life 'easier' and 'safer' without consulting her. There were always kids who pointed at her and said she was weird and broken at school, and they were awful, but Heather and everyone like her somehow grated more. Sympathy—no, _pity_—was worse than whispers about how she must have been a secret cyborg to have metal _things_ on her legs.

Becky shoved all those thoughts down and tried to focus on chit-chat. "Right now, I'm working on a photo series—"

"Well, you look fantastic!" Heather's face lit up. "And healthy!"

Becky felt the skin of her palm break under her nails. "So do you. What are you doing these days?"

"I'm a junior events planner," Heather said with a glimmer of pride. "I'm here to scope out the location for a gallery party, actually. What are you doing here?"

"Like I said, I'm working on a photo series…" She hoped she sounded enthusiastic enough. It was hard to tell; the conversation was making her feel crankier by the second. "I was about to go, though. I'm a little—"

"Tired?"

Oh, there was no point in contradicting her, it would just drag this torture out. "Yeah. I'm working long hours lately and with school and everything…."

"Are you still working at that little sandwich shop?" Heather asked. "I can't imagine being on my feet all day, it must just be awful for you. You know, you should look into a desk job."

Inside, Becky thought with marked sarcasm, _No. Really? I **never** would have thought of that._ Outside, she said, "I'm thinking about it."

Heather smiled at her with such genuine warmth Becky felt bad holding anything against her. "It was great seeing you. Do you want me to walk you anywhere?"

"No, I'll be okay." Becky slipped her camera strap over her head and got to her feet. "I'll see you around."

"I hope so." Heather jumped up and hugged her again. "Look me up sometime! We'll have lunch."

Becky spent her walk to the bus stop replaying the conversation and coming up with more clever things to say; angrier, more honest things. She spent her time on the bus feeling guilty about having any negative feelings about the whole thing at all. By turns she berated herself for not being angrier and for being angry.

The swirl of emotions only came to a stop when she reached the floor her apartment was on and found Janet Van Dorn standing in front of her door.

Becky blew some of her hair out of her face and sighed. Today just got better and better.

"Hello, Miss Van Dorn," she said, passing her by to stick her key in the door. She turned it in the lock and pushed the door open. "I guess I'm inviting you in, huh?"


	4. Chapter 4

Becky's apartment door wobbled open when she gave it a push. A quick look at the hinges revealed the screws had started to come loose again, something it felt like they did every other month. Becky logged it as one more thing to report to the landlord that he wouldn't fix and one more complaint to fill out that wouldn't be read. Peeling one of her arms out of her coat, Becky dropped her keys in the yellow ceramic bowl on the end table next to the door where they jangled against some loose change. She tossed her coat over one of her dining chairs. It landed in a messy heap.

Van Dorn didn't follow her inside right away. She lingered in the hallway, hesitant, like a vampire waiting for a proper invitation to come inside. That made an amusing mental image: a creature of the night with a law degree who required an ironclad, legally binding contract to enter a home.

"Well," Becky pulled her camera over her head and put it on the tiny kitchen table, then tugged off her scarf and fluffed her hair where it had been wrapped up by the wool, "come in if you're coming. I'm not paying to heat the hallway."

A crooked smile spread across Van Dorn's dour face, softening her sharp features to a small degree. Becky found it a striking contrast: she was _attractive_ when she smiled. Oh, not magazine cover beautiful or anything like that, but her smile was luminous enough to make her pretty while everything around it kept her face interesting. Not that anyone would have known if they hadn't seen it firsthand; no indication of beauty could be found in the perpetual scowl she wore, only severity. She would make a good subject, if she ever let anyone capture that on film. As the other woman crossed the threshold into the kitchenette and closed the door behind her, Becky caught herself wondering if she kept her jaw set and her eyes intense to look tough. If so, she did a good job of it. Van Dorn didn't look like the sort of woman one wanted to cross in a courtroom or out of one.

"I'd offer you something to drink like a good host," Becky said, turning her back to Van Dorn, "but I don't think I've got anything in the fridge that isn't curdled."

"Tap water's fine." Becky moved toward the sink, but Van Dorn's hand caught her arm. "Don't trouble yourself, I can get it."

Becky took a deep, steadying breath and faced her with steely eyes that, after meeting Van Dorn's own, gave a pointed glance at the uninvited hand on her arm. "I can do it, Miss Van Dorn. I'm not incompetent."

"I'm sorry," Van Dorn let her go and took half a step back, "I didn't mean to imply—" "No one ever does." While Becky's temper remained bridled, her voice came out frosty. Her patience and politeness may have been wearing thin, but she didn't need to show it. She went to the cupboard.

From the periphery of her vision, she saw Van Dorn looking around the dismal apartment with what may have been feigned interest. She drifted toward the wall beside the bathroom door where several of Becky's own photos were pinned with brass thumb tacks. Becky knew it was stupid for her heartbeat to speed up as she scrutinized the pictures, but she couldn't help it. So few people ever saw her work, and fewer still cared enough to let their gazes linger, even among the people who supported her pursuit of photography. Most just wanted to congratulate her for doing something with her life other than…well, whatever they thought she would have been doing otherwise. "Amateur photographer? I had no idea."

"It's my major," Becky said, filling a glass with water and turning off the faucet. She walked over to Van Dorn and handed her the glass. She accepted it with a distracted, "Thank you."

"These are quite good," Van Dorn said, taking a sip of her water. "Of course, I'm hardly a patron of the arts, so you're welcome to take that compliment with a grain of salt."

"Look, I appreciate that you're trying to be…" Becky made a vague gesture with her hands as she tried to find the right words. "…likable or engaging or whatever, but I'd like to know what you just happened to be doing on my doorstep at the exact time I got home. You're having me followed, right?"

"I wouldn't say that." Van Dorn took a seat in Becky's armchair and settled back, letting her long legs stretch out and crossed them at the ankle. Her hands clasped in her lap, her fingers loose and relaxed. The effect was easygoing, but elegant. "I've had a few people keeping an eye on your apartment building at certain times of the day to make sure you get where you're going and get home safe…but that's all. I'm not in the business of invading people's privacy if I can help it."

That bordered on being touching; did every DA care _that_ much about potential witnesses who ditched them? "Why are you here?"

"Well," Van Dorn leaned forward, her elbows braced against her thighs, and threaded her fingers together under her nose. Bright eyes fixed on Becky's face. "A little birdie told me you lived a block from Perrini's cafe. I happen to be fond of their fresh mozzarella and sun dried tomato paninis, so I thought I'd pop in and see if I'd get lucky enough to catch you at home."

_Yeah, right._ "What do you _want_, Miss Van Dorn?"

"To talk."

"I'm sorry, I don't have time." The lie came out with all the ease the truth would have. "I have a mountain of homework."

"Look, Becky," Van Dorn's eyes locked with hers as she put her water glass on the small table beside the chair, "I'm not here to force you to talk to me. I'm going to go to the cafe, and I'm going to get myself a sandwich. I'll get a table. If you feel like listening to what I have to say, you can come find me. I hope you will, but I'll understand if you don't."

Nothing else was said. She got up, gave Becky a nod as a goodbye and walked right out of the apartment. The door shut behind her, but Becky could still hear the heels of her shoes clicking on the floor in the hallway. She listened hard for the sound of the elevator doors. A ding. A rattle. There. She was on her way down to the lobby.

If only she had been pushier. It would have been easier for Becky to say no if she had been pushier, her conscience wouldn't have been bothered then…but she had to be kind and understanding about it and give her a choice in the matter. After a weary sigh and some pointless deliberation wherein she tried to convince herself not to do what she knew she would, Becky pulled on her coat.

Perrini's sat on the corner less than a block from Becky's apartment. It wasn't fashionable, or even well known, but the food was good enough to sometimes tempt people to this lousy part of town for a taste of it. The cafe was close to empty when Becky entered. Van Dorn, true to her word, did have a sandwich, centered on one of the red plastic serving trays the cafe provided, as well as a bowl of soup and a cup of coffee. She had another, identical tray of food across from her. It looked…delicious. A growl rumbled Becky's stomach, quiet enough that Van Dorn couldn't have heard it when she slid into the chair opposite.

"Doesn't this count as bribery?"

"Not if you take me up on my offer. In fact, not even if you don't." Van Dorn pulled the foil off a single serving of creamer and poured it in her coffee. A spoon clinked against the ceramic mug, stirring until the liquid went from deep brown to beige. "Eat up."

The sandwich looked good, the soup looked amazing—cheddar and broccoli—but Becky went for the coffee instead. It would be easier to walk away from if she deemed it necessary. Strong and bitter, it slid down her throat and warmed her insides. "You said you wanted to talk…"

"Never ruin a good meal with business," Van Dorn said, taking a bite. "Why don't you tell me about your photography?"

"Because I don't think you actually _care_?" Becky's coffee cup clattered on the saucer. "Please just tell me what you want."

Van Dorn's lips pressed together and she put the sandwich back on her plate. "Jonathan Crane off the streets, for a very, _very_ long time. Something I'm having a hard time securing."

She didn't like the direction this conversation was headed. "You don't need me. You have a dozen other people—"

"_Had_. Between some 'mysterious' disappearances and a few dead bodies, my witness list has dwindled to nothing." Becky opened her mouth to say something, but Van Dorn held up her hand. "But that isn't the issue. I'm not here to ask you to get involved. I've got my indictment, and while the evidence is…not as strong as I'd like it to be without witness testimony, I can probably swing a conviction anyway so long as the judge isn't dirty and doesn't throw out what I've got. I'm here to ask you to let me put you someplace where you'll be protected, or at least give you some security until I'm sure you're not next on his list."

Becky's senses reeled and her head felt light, like it might float away. "Am I in danger?" The question was redundant, but she couldn't keep from asking it.

"Yes." There was no hedging, no dancing around the issue; it shocked her how blunt Van Dorn was. "You're not the only witness who decided, 'randomly', not to make a statement about Crane's crimes. Unless each and every one of them decided to go out of town at the same time, it seems he wasn't satisfied with just their word. If I can prove he's responsible, I won't need witnesses to put him in prison until he rots. I can't do that yet, but I want to at least keep you safe until I can. I hope you'll let me."


End file.
